


Friends, First Punches.

by soennavind



Series: Chronicle of a Life Untold [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, Kid Fic, M/M, and vittorio really did deserve that first punch, bucky is a good friend, where steve is unable to restrain himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 09:04:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11055750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soennavind/pseuds/soennavind
Summary: Mr. Rogers refuses to apologise.





	Friends, First Punches.

"Mr. Rogers, you shall apologise for antagonising your classmate. This kind of behaviour simply will not do in a young man such as yourself."

"But he-" 

"Quiet. You cast the first stone, so you shall be the first to make amends. Mr. Vittorio threw, as opposed to you, only words." Steve blinked fish-like at her. Truth became distorted before him as he looked up into her black eyes. His memory of the fight started to warp and twist as Miss Erstat lay her commands upon him. She held his gaze sternly, skin pulled tight against her skull.

Steve hated Miss Erstat for her ability to seed guilt in his mind. 

She motioned encouragingly at Vittorio, who smiled back at him, fully expecting Steve to say 'uncle' and call it quits.

Steve felt like a sinking stone, but he knew he couldn't say it, couldn't say 'sorry'. He would be a liar. He clenched his fists and hunched his shoulders. Black flowers bloomed in his voice as he raised it. 

"Miss, I did not cast the first stone. Benny did that. All I threw was the first punch. That's different." He gritted his teeth. He watched as Erstat's face changed from accommodating to cruel. 

Vittorio's smile deepened. 

A thin-fingered vice closed around his wrist, and before he knew up from down, his knuckles stung and prickled like hail and needles. He was the only one in their class who got it on the knuckles rather than on the palm. It wasn't fair; they'd healed from the last time, but not completely, so the pain multiplied upon itself. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes, and he fought to not look at selfish, brutal Vittorio.

Even as the ruler snapped across his vulnerable bones, however, he thought about beating Vittorio across the face again. He'd break a hand for it if he had to. 

God knew Vittorio deserved it. 

Erstat straightened up when she was done but did not release his hands.

"You shall learn proper conduct. Whether it takes the ruler or the cane is for you to decide, Mr. Rogers," she whispered, white ice in every syllable.

Steve looked her dead in the eye. 

"Yes, ma'am," he returned. 

Erstat released him. His wrists and his knuckles were red, purple, and splotched. Then she went back to monitoring the playground with the other teachers.

Vittorio approached him slowly, predator-like, to snap up the spoils and leave an imparting wound. 

"You should just roll over, Rogers. Why goddamned bother, you're bound to lose," Vittorio drawled in his lazy Italian tongue. 

"I only lose if I do roll over. Stuff yourself, you ham," Steve mumbled as he shoved his hands into his armpits. Vittorio made an annoyed sound, then ambled back into the playground as well, greeted by a victorious cheer from his gaggle of friends. 

Steve hung back in the grey shade of their decrepit school. He stood by himself and let a small hiccup escape him. His hands burned. His eyes burned. His fury burned.

It was only October.

 

* * *

 

Sarah worked a lot. 

She took night shifts, morning shifts, and day shifts on every given occasion, a chance never escaping her. A browned certificate awarding her diligence hung sadly in the entrée. Steve stared at it long and hard on the evenings where he came home to cold dinner and a brisk handwritten note apologising for her absence. 

She does it for me, he thought, gripping the note tightly. She wants me to be happy, he thought. He wished he could smother the the voice that said otherwise, because he knew the things it said weren't true.

Because she would smile with her eyes closed when she kissed his forehead and call him her little guardian angel. Because she would sometimes cry on the nights she could see the moon and be reminded of Steve's beautiful, late father. 

Steve loved his mother more than he could ever express. 

Sundays were his favourite day. She was always home on Sundays, and they went to mass together; hand in hand. She'd wear her beautiful white and yellow dress, the one that made her hair look like daisies and sea foam, and he would wear his Sunday best. He always cleaned it himself. 

They would stroll into church, amicably greet their neighbours, and then they'd listen, peace in their hearts, to Father Padraigh's low, steady intonations about the Lord's love for mankind.

For that was Padraigh's unerring, hopeful message; that they were loved, even when they didn't feel like it.

Truth be told, Steve had spent confession more than once professing that he didn't feel so sure God was watching over him at all. Padraigh was unsurprised but calmly assured him that the Lord would be proud of Steve no matter how his chips were to fall. Steve could never believe that, but he nodded and agreed to fulfilling his absolution. 

Padraigh always opened mass with a lulling hymn that made Steve think of hallowed marble halls, followed by a small prayer for the unlucky and the unhappy. 

The church itself seemed to cradle their ensemble; its tall ceiling catching and reflecting the higher notes of the women in the audience, the stained glass casting rainbow images on the floor on sunny days.

Father Padraigh similarly closed mass with a humble request for small donations to help fix the roof, which was beginning to rot and fall through in some places.

Steve liked Father Padraigh. He was a better priest than their last priest, a certain Father McGregor, who had been a stout traditionalist who enjoyed rattling on about what awaited them all in Hell. Steve figured it was some particular Scottish nightmare that haunted him.

As an Irish boy of course, such nightmares escaped him. A calvinist, he reckoned. 

Sundays were also nice, in Steve's opinion, because Sarah had promised him to never take Sunday-night shifts, so that they could always meet the week with a hearty Monday breakfast. It meant Steve got to sleep with her on the seventh night of rest, a welcome routine once the weather wintered.

But then something started to change in December. She started working more. They didn't go listen to Father Padraigh anymore. They didn't eat hearty breakfasts on Monday mornings. 

It was to "meet the market" Sarah said. Steve didn't understand what that meant at all, but he knew that it made her hair scraggly, and that it made her forget to wash their clothes.

As a result, he learned to do all of his own laundry with the help of Mrs. Robinson from next door, who was ecstatic at the chance to teach a young man the merits of housework. He found he didn't particularly mind doing the laundry, after all. 

Snow fell hard and heavy on the 15th. It snowed up the streets, turning the mud into a thick grey paste. School was closed, so Steve stayed home. His excitement at being let out of school 3 days ahead of schedule, however, was quickly extinguished.

Home was empty and cold, as he quickly discovered. Sarah came home only to sleep and to make meals. Then she would leave again, leaving Steve with only his spectral thoughts and the snow beating against the thin windows. 

She promised she'd be home for Christmas though, which brightened Steve's spirits. 

He imagined hot roast beef, dozens of coloured candles, a cozy atmosphere, and whatever present she had prepared for him. He practically vibrated with anticipation at the idea.

Then the 23rd rolled around, and with the small amount of money he'd been saving up since summer, he bought her a bracelet at the recommendation of the lady manning the boutique. She helped him wrap it up in brown paper—because it was cheaper—and gave him some purple ribbon.

He rushed home with the gift cradled under the protection of his fat coat, and hid it at the bottom of the food closet. 

He woke up early on the 24th to do the washing and cleaning. He made sure their 2-room flat gleamed. He did all the laundry, including Sarah's this time, and made sure they had all the ingredients they needed to make a luxurious—though not outrageous—dinner. When he was done, he seated himself in his Da's favourite rocking chair by the window. Eagerly, he sat there until 4 o'clock in the afternoon with his eyes dancing across the scene below, trying to spot Sarah coming to him; coming home. 

But sleep started to leaden his eyelids with dreams, and he drifted off, thoughts of presents and warm food colouring his dreams. 

He woke, later. Much later. He woke at 10 in the night. Sarah wasn't home. There was no dinner being prepared in the kitchen. The radio was silent.

Steve was so fucking cold.

He grabbed his blanket and dragged himself into bed, despite not being sleepy in the least. He just lay there, staring desperately at the ceiling and at the walls until his eyes were empty and dry. His limbs felt like rock and lead and leaf. He felt like his chest was caving in, like a depression was forming where his ribs had once been.

Sleep didn't take him again until 3 in the morning. 

He spent Christmas Eve and morning alone.

* * *

Crack-splat. 

Slick wetness dripped down his neck. He shrieked as it stained his collar, and used his hands to wipe it off. Egg was always a beast to wash out, he thought depressingly once he identified what had splattered on his head. 

A chorus of laughter rose from his friends. They were all looking at him, and, as usual, he got really angry, really fast.

"Who threw that?!" he hollered as he eyed them in turn. He spun about their circle of six, considering each of the boys now that they were clearly his nemeses and not to be trusted. 

Egg yolk dripped into his eye and another peel of laughter reverberated between them.

Vittorio looked particularly smug, so Steve stalked up to him and craned his neck to look him in the eye. Then he grinned, vengeance surging through him, and stuck two fingers up Vittorio's nose. 

Vittorio snorted and gargled, and Steve felt somewhat vindicated because he was dead sure that even if Vittorio hadn't tossed the egg, he was certainly the one who'd gotten the other 5 to participate in this scheme to humiliate Steve.

"The hell was that for, Rogers?" he demanded.

"Eye for an eye, Vitty," Steve responded in equal smugness. Vittorio's eyes blazed; his chest inflated like a bird's. Steve thought he looked stupid, but then his fist whacked across Steve's cheek. His knees faltered with the shock of it. Steve reconsidered; Vittorio had the very appearance of a proper Italian goon.

A speck of fear gnawed at him then. He stood up to Vittorio when they were alone, but it was Monday so only Erstat was minding the playground. Steve thought it safe to assume that Erstat would see Vittorio's violence as a sort of well-deserved punishment.

She would look away, he was sure of it.

Who was then to stop the 6 boys from coining him.

Steve was just about to say sorry when a girlish voice piped up behind him. 

"Stop that, Benny! Don't be so mean!" 

Steve spun around, surprised that he wasn't defending himself on his own for once. 

It was Lucie Capusçinski. She had her hands on her hips, and her brows were pulled together in annoyance. Her socks were slipping down past her shins, and she had obvious mud stains on her dress.

"Aw Lucie, we're just playing. It's international pranksters' day today," he said and held up the flats of his hands in a show of benevolence.

"How come I ain't see no one else with egg on their head then? Anyway, giving someone a shiner ain't a prank at all," she spat as she stalked closer. 

Steve admired her. 

He hardly dared blink as he continued to remove shell shards from his hair.

"He's just the first victim, don't you worry." Vittorio then smiled at her, his yellow teeth showing between his fat lips. Steve shuddered; he knew a threat when he heard one. Lucie on the other hand was undeterred; she grabbed Steve's hand and dragged him off the ground and away with her.

They rounded the end of the playground before she stopped pulling. 

"He can be so awful!" she said suddenly, unprompted by Steve.

"We're all used to it by now. No need to get fussed about it," Steve said, trying for placation. She rounded on him, eyebrows pulled even tighter than before.

Then she pinched him.

"What—!?"

"Man up, Rogers! You let Benny step on you, and he's never gonna let you go." Lucie's curls bounced with her conviction. She looked at him very seriously, and Steve got the impression that she wanted him to agree with her. Steve didn't have anything to say though, and her disappointment permeated through the air.

Erstat sounded the whistle, so they filed up and went back in.

Steve couldn't concentrate on his poems or on his algebra. Erstat's sharp voice became a dull fuzz in the background. His eyes drifted to the window, and his thoughts to Lucie's muddy dress.

He wanted to apologise to her. He wished he'd been more upstanding, more dependable. 

He wasn't the only one Vittorio stepped on, he was well aware of that.

The last bell rang, and Erstat ordered them to finish the last few exercises, as well as the ones on the next page of their thin textbook.

As he was packing up his stuff, he caught a flash of white in the corner of his eye—a dress.

It was Lucie, hurrying across the playground as the first person to leave school grounds. Steve's fingers tightened on his bag strap.

Her dress was stiff and yellowed in many places. Her face was red.

Vittorio had made her a target as well, Steve realised. Erstat didn't bat an eyelash.

Steve walked back home. He felt like an ass. 

April Fools came and went, and Steve realised he was biggest fool of them all. 

He'd let Vittorio win, in the end. 

* * *

"What do you think of this one, Rogers?"

Barnes was looking at him expectantly, a glint in his grin before his face contorted into a befuddled grimace. Steve frowned for a moment, feeling befuddled himself. 

"This one what?" 

"This look! These eyes! Like Capone! Like the real ones!" Barnes yelled, clearly unaware of how loud his voice was. He threw his hands out, pulled his suspenders taut and let them snap against his chest.

It was a ridiculous display of confidence and manliness which he did not possess. 

Steve sighed. Why'd he, of all the kids in their class, get stuck working with the excitable and interruptive Barnes boy? And why should he care how convincing his "gangster" glare was?

"Yeah, lad, a killer. Sure to frighten 'em," Steve replied absolutely deadpan. Now it was Barnes that frowned.

"You've no conviction. You don't even mean that. If you're gonna be mean, well you'd better mean it, I say!"

Barnes then stood up from their enclave under the tree, and shot Steve a sour pout over his shoulder as he made to sit in the ochre sunlight. 

Steve sighed. He didn't know how to respond to Barnes' enthusiasm. 

The moment he'd walked in, Steve felt his presence like a hand of change shifting the chess pieces forward—because he'd entered the room with an amenable smile on his face, his hair styled in the popular boyish fashion, while his eyes dotted from desk to desk. He'd spent a moment scanning them all, the girls and their rose-spiked glares and the boys with their dull-edged gazes, before settling firmly on Steve. 

He'd introduced himself as James. Steve imagined friend and foe, simultaneously, in the boy and his obvious choice of Steve as the object of his attention. 

Damned transfers, he thought privately, ruining the year just before summer. He'd made it through the year alive, and he didn't fancy attracting attention just before they were let out of school. Erstat would jump at a chance like that. 

His hands were still healing from his last run-in anyhow.

Barnes, however, was being decidedly uncooperative that afternoon, and hadn't done a lick of work. He preferred to stare absentminded at fat, slow clouds or after ladies with pretty figures in pretty dresses.

He even lay himself down in the sweet-smelling grass, eyes closed and hands crossed over his chest. He looked peaceful and more at home there than Steve himself felt.

"You ever seen Miss Lady Liberty up close?" Barnes began conversationally, "Is she as green as she looks on postcards? How about those biiiiiiig buildings in Manny? I've not been across the bridges yet, see, Mama wants us to settle in first. Make a couple friends, then take a round trip to N'York's hub—Mama says she'll even take me to a bar! Say, what do you prefer; hot dogs or ice cream?" Barnes babbled endlessly. He didn't stop to allow commentary, and he changed subject at the drop of a coin. 

Steve watched him for a while, resolutely not making or encouraging conversation while he took in the boy's features. Barnes had thick, glossy hair and a round face that suggested a pure sort of glee. His shirt was spick-span clean, as were his trousers, but his boots were a right tragedy. Holed, broken-laced, and terribly aged, Steve wondered why on earth he kept the things.

Barnes had a fairly nice pair of eyes, Steve thought. Grey and bright, he at least didn't look stupid like some of the other boys and girls. Plus, his teeth were good: proper set and brushed.

A mother's care was evident in every crevice of his character. Although he didn't know Barnes beyond his rancid enthusiasm yet, he appreciated at least that much. Some of the more horrid boys had equally horrid mothers who didn't brush their teeth or iron their shirts.

Barnes' mother couldn't be so bad considering his presentation. 

Steve pulled his knees to his chest and leaned his head against the thick tree trunk. His eyes drifted from Barnes to the shifting greenery above; patches of light fell across his eyes, and he blinked when the glare blinded him. 

"Say, Rogers, what's fun around here?" Barnes asked into the air after half an hour of directionless babble. He adopted a more agreeable tone, for the first time that afternoon expecting conversation. He sounded curious and naïve. Steve was puzzled; Barnes vacillated surprisingly easily between modes of emotion. 

"This is N'York, Barnes. We don't do fun, we do entertainment," Steve said, unaffected. He didn't remove his gaze from the leaves above him.

"Now we're getting somewhere—so what's good entertainment then?" Barnes smiled at him then, his eyebrows lifting high on his forehead as he waited for Steve to clue him in. 

Steve wondered why Barnes looked at him like that. Like Steve was an opportunity; like he was a good thing waiting to happen. It puzzled Steve. Suddenly Lucie's red face swam to the fore of his mind, and the disappointment she had in his character.

Steve blinked, and made his mind up. 

"Flicks are fun," he said, a grin beginning to tug at his rose lips.

"Didn't you just say–" Barnes started to say before catching on and catapulting himself across to Steve, capturing him in a gangly headlock. "Now you're feeling it! Come on, get to know me. Let's see a flick. What d'you wanna watch?" Barnes had his arm around Steve's shoulders, and his sharp bones prodded at Steve. 

"Ease up, Barnes. Ma said Astaire's in the theatre again." 

"With Rogers?" Bucky asked. Steve started, surprised. 

"Pardon?" 

"No, not with you, silly. With Ginger, of course! Don't tell me you can tap-dance, Rogers," Barnes joked as he shook Steve.

"Quit that. No, course I can't tap-dance. Lungs are no good," Steve said as he pushed Barnes' arms off him and stood up. He decided he'd have to do Barnes' part of the homework as well, and if the other plotted to say anything stupid in front of Miss Erstat, he'd cover for the both of them.

"Aw, that's a shame, pal." Barnes seemed genuinely apologetic at that, and his eyebrows did a funny curl on his forehead. Then he put out his hand in a request for a leg-up.

Steve obliged.

"What's your first name again?" Barnes was wiping off his behind as he asked that.

"Steven."

"Alright, Stevie then. How's that? My rear good? Mama'll have my neck if I'm filthy without bringing any friends home." It was so brash that Steve almost laughed. 

"Yeah, yeah you're fine. Where you from, really?" Steve picked up his bag and slung it across his front. Barnes' eyes perked up, sensing Steve's milder attitude.

"Oh, I'm from N'York. Moved to Jersey when I was little cause we ran outta money and my folks' folks lived there. Mama's from Sicilia, but we're all New Yorkers at heart. You a citizen, fella? You got an accent," Barnes rattled off one piece of information after the other, taking no heed of whether or not Steve was really listening. 

Barnes wouldn't know, but Steve was taking in every thing he offered.

"Ma's Irish, Pa's Irish, I's from Brooklyn," he listed, fairly certain that Barnes would be content with that amount of personal information. He wasn't willing to give up anything more personal. 

Not yet at least. 

"Well, it's good to meet you, Mr. America! You ever been to Ireland? Cause I ain't ever been to Sicilia, and Mama wants me to try the tomatoes..."

 

* * *

 

Steve couldn't hear out of his left ear. There was an unending screaming pitch ringing in his head, and he was dizzy. Vittorio had, in a second of pure unluck, put a flat palm to Steve's head, right over his ear, and Steve didn't like to imagine what was wrong with it. 

The other boy was tall, much taller than Steve. He didn't feel intimidated, but he was worried he was gonna end up in the hospital—Vittorio was furious this time, foaming at the mouth. Steve didn't want to go to the hospital; Sarah couldn't afford it, and plus, it wouldn't be for a just cause. 

Because this was just a bully once again casting the first stone.

Steve took a shaky breath and tried to stand up straight when something in his back pulled the wrong way and he collapsed, wheezing. Vittorio laughed breezily at Steve's display of weakness.

Then he rushed forward again with the ferocity of a starving rat. They both went down as Vittorio crashed into Steve's bird-boned body. Vittorio's greasy hair fell across his wide mad eyes. Steve's blood decorated his collar. He caught Steve by putting his knees on either side of his torso and arms, effectively straddling Steve's front. He grabbed Steve by the hair and yanked hard as he let a final fist fly forwards, downwards. 

Steve squeezed his eyes shut.

And waited for the blow. 

And waited.

And waited for the blow that never came. The weight was suddenly removed with a grunt and a slam, and Steve sat up to see what had happened.

Brutal Vittorio was being thrown bodily by Barnes onto the pavement outside the alley. Steve couldn't see Barnes' face, but his posture suggested violence.

He sighed with relief. That final blow would have broken his nose. 

Vittorio was just getting up when Barnes stomped forward and booted him on the rump, making him fly face first into the grime by the curb.

"Pick on someone your own size!" he yelled after him. Vittorio snarled bestially but scampered off down the street when he saw Barnes' determination for what it was: tight-lipped and unforgiving. 

Once Vittorio was out of sight, Steve coughed, embarrassed. Barnes turned to him, grey bright eyes centring on Steve's own. 

"Hi, fella. That's pretty rough, you need a hand?" Barnes walked over and squatted in front of him, using his newsboy cap to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

"No. Yes. No," Steve wheezed. Barnes laughed. 

"You got a concussion or sumthin'? Your head alright?" Barnes reached for Steve's forehead only to be swatted away. Steve coughed again, and his back hurt, but he managed to pull himself to his feet without leaning on Barnes, who placed himself close on Steve's left.

"You need to watch out for yourself, Stevie. It was lucky I saw you, you know. Wouldn't have been pretty if he'd followed through," Barnes said seriously; his expression was a far cry from its usual light-heartedness. 

"Yeah, yeah—" he started to say just as Barnes pinched him. Steve was shocked, thrown back to when he'd failed Lucie.

"I mean it. Don't get yourself killed, Steve." Barnes didn't blink.

"Yeah, okay. I hear you," Steve breathed softly. He put his hand in his hair, trying to lay it flat against his head. He was dumbstruck by the gravity in Barnes' voice, but he couldn't help it when he continued:

"Vittorio deserved that first punch though."

Barnes let escape a choked guffaw. 

"You always this stubborn?" he asked in a lowered, revering voice.

"Get used to it, Barnes," Steve blew the blood and snot from his nose into the gutter. It was a glob of red goop, and Steve felt a little sick as he wiped his mouth. 

"Hey, that reminds me—Call me Bucky. Short for Buchanan." 

"Buchanan?"

"Yeah, my middle name. My friends call me Bucky." Barnes put a hand on his back, and Steve almost shoved him off before he registered what Barnes had said. 

"Friends?"

"Yeah, friends. People who you like, people who've got your back in a fix, you know, who'll share their lunch with you?"

"Don't be funny. We're friends?"

"If we're not friends, what are we then, eh? Acquaintances? Fella, I think not," he said casually before snapping his cap back on and wrapping a full arm about Steve's torso, his hand coming to rest against the bottom of his rib cage. They left the shade of the alley; Steve remembered dreamily that it was summer now. 

"Huh." Steve said obliquely. He felt blindsided. He felt a little bit dumb. But most of all, he felt for the first time in months a faint pulse of happiness moving blood through his body.


End file.
